There currently exists a variety of portable computing devices (i.e., mobile devices), including wireless computing devices such as mobile telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), tablet computers, and laptop computers, which are small, lightweight, and easily carried by users. Mobile devices such as cellular telephones, internet protocol (IP) telephones, and smartphone devices can communicate audio and data packets over wireless networks. In addition, mobile devices may also process software applications such as a web browser application, a music player, an email program, a game, etc.
Further, many such mobile devices may include one or more microphones that are used to capture audio signals. With wireless capabilities, the transmission of audio information, such as speech and music, on mobile devices by digital techniques has become widespread. Audio signals can also be processed for audio recognition, which is used for many applications such as searching for music in a mobile device.
Such applications, however, are typically configured to run continuously on the mobile device, such as for automatically capturing environmental sounds of the mobile device. Since the applications are running continuously, the mobile device may consume a large amount of power, thereby limiting the battery life of the mobile device. In addition, the applications may communicate audio information over a network continuously, further depleting the power resources of the mobile device. Thus, there is a need for a method and apparatus for controlling applications in a mobile device to improve the use of power resources.